The Master Builder

I have made a few- necessary- connections in the past few weeks in order to locate my teaching philosophy and position as a Higher Education student.

The following 3 points have become very important and influential in my developing point of view on Art Education.

• TED Talk: Teaching art or to think like an artist? Cindy Meyers Foley. I mentioned this in the second blog post. It is something I keep coming back to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcFRfJb2ONk&index=2&list=PLxsSUtZk_hjGXnkrwlvjFoN5yWL7Ds9g5&t=0s

• Groundcourse developed by Roy Ascott "within which everything can find its place and every individual his way"
• Lego Master Builder concept:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um-PlX6oPBQ

I took my own teaching and workshops apart to see what I was doing wrong and what I  could do to improve the student's experience. The main shift in my strategy was to actually begin to teach students as though they were artists and not as students. I realized this was key but it was harder to understand, But I came up with the conclusion that I needed to help artists how they other artists I was presenting to them would have thought, why it was revolutionary and to lead the artist to be inspired to create their own work.

Previously I would help students recreate work that is found in the museums' collection. They would learn valuable skills, but how could they bring this into their own body of work? By providing the context, socio, religious, environmental, economical as well as present a hypothesis of how the artist may have developed the work, I think I may have the beginning of changing the way I teach.

In the Ted talk by Foley, she explains often we are treating students like assistants in order to complete a task and we the teacher are acting as the Master Builder. As Ascott states in his fleixble structure Groundcourse, the individual is free to explore and find their own path and conclusions. This would result in my students creating 20 individual pieces that will foster more appreciation for the process than for the 20 replicas they would have made otherwise.

Next Steps:

Groudcourse- look at it more closely

Danto Postmodern education

Marder Kamhi- Hijaking of Art Education
7+ 7 Visual Principles